Nick Maxwell Directed by Kenneth Branagh By Fergus Whelan By the time you read this review I am sure that many History Ireland readers will already have seen Kenneth Branagh’s latest movie, Belfast. This film is a homage to the city of his birth, the community of his boyhood and his much-loved Protestant working-class extended family. For … Read more
RTÉ1, 3 February 2022 By Sylvie Kleinman This slightly formulaic yet stylish documentary commemorated—indeed, unashamedly celebrated—the passage of 100 years since the publication of James Joyce’s Ulysses in Paris on 2 February 1922 (his 40th birthday). Part of a busy programme to mark this other defining Irish centenary, its perspectives on Ireland’s most cherished exile … Read more
By Jacqui Hayes St Joseph’s Hospital was founded as Limerick District Lunatic Asylum in 1827 with accommodation for 150 patients, a number almost immediately exceeded. The minute books in the archives document that from the earliest days overcrowding was a constant problem. In 1874 the inspectors of lunatic asylums reported that ‘from the statistics before … Read more
By Siobhán Doyle According to legend, the Aonach Tailteann (Tailteann Games) was first staged in County Meath several centuries BC as a large gathering to celebrate the life of Queen Tailté, the foster-mother of Ireland’s mythical high king, Lugh of the Long Arm. There were religious, legal and matchmaking aspects to the festival, which reputedly … Read more
By Hiram Morgan It is not surprising that East–West relations are now convulsed by the war waged against Ukraine, as that country’s name means frontier or borderland. It is a different type of natural border from what we are used to in the West, not a channel, river, mountain range, marshland or forested terrain but … Read more